
aass_ 
Book- 



EULOGIUM 



ON 



THOMAS JEFFERSON, 



DELIVERED BEFORE 



srtie Wmxit^xi JJHilosioiiijital SotUtjj, 



ELEVENTH DAY OF APRIL 1827. 



By NICHOLAS BIDDLE. 



JlutU'siietr at X\\z request of tiie SocCets. 



PHILADELPHIA. 

PUBLISHED BY ROBERT H. SMALL, 

No. 165, Chesnut Street. 

1827. 



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.^J^ ^5^^..* \^ 4ftp. .z3S. 



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James Kay, Jun. Printer, 
S. E. Corner of Race ^ Sixth Streets, 
Philadelphia. 



Hall of the Society, 

YMhSpril 1827. 

At a Special Meeting of the American Philosophical 
Society, held to-day, the following Resolutions ivere 
adopted : 

Resolved, That the thanks of the Society he-presented 
to Mr Biddle for the able manner in which he performed 
the duty which they had assigned to him, in pronouncing 
the Eulogium of their former President, Thomas Jeffer- 
son. 

Resolved, That a copy of the Eulogium be requested 
of Mr Biddle, for publication. 

Extract from the Minutes. 

G. ORD, Secretary. 



EULOGIUM. 



Mr President and Gentlemen 

of the rhilosophical Society, 

WE are assembled to render the customary honours 
to the late president of our society, Thomas 
Jefferson. These are melancholy, yet not unavailing 
duties. The object of them lies far beyond the reach 
of our applause, but the homage which cannot benefit 
the dead, may console and instruct the living. And 
rarely have higher honours been conferred on any human 
being than were recently bestowed on Jefferson and his 
illustrious companion in fame and in death, when a great 
people whom they had long served, forgetting all the 
collisions which once embittered the strife of power, 
crowded round their open graves with so subdued and 
mingled a sorrow, that for the first time perhaps in the 
history of the world, the regrets of a whole nation were 
blended in the funeral train of their rival chieftains. Be 
it our office, as their more immediate associates in this 
society, to close this mournful procession; to give the 
last look down that tomb into which we shall all soon 
2 



6 

follow them, and then pausing from the pursuits of the 
world dedicate a kw moments to the memory of Jef- 
ferson. 

Of his private life little need now be said, as its de- 
tails will be conveyed to posterity by the works which 
he has himself bequeathed. It will be more becoming 
in this humble testimonial to draw merely the outline of 
his personal history, to dwell on the acts by which he 
will be most distinguished, and endeavour to render 
the review not wholly unproductive by recommending 
to our imitation whatever may seem exemplary. 

In doing this we may shun the useless eflbrt to sepa- 
rate his abstract and philosophical character from the 
active career of public service vvhich estranged him 
from his studies. Jefferson was the president of this 
society whose purpose is "the promotion of useful 
" knowledge." Within that wide circle all the pursuits 
beneficial to man find their appropriate place, and it 
were far too limited an estimate of philosophy to restrict 
its name to learned abstractions or to the study of infe- 
rior and inanimate nature. The noblest object of crea- 
tion is man; the highest studies are those vvhich advance 
his moral dignity and improve his intellectual and 
physical condition. While, therefore, metaphysical 
and natural science offer their tempting difficulties and 
their inexhaustible discoveries to exercise and reward 
ambition, the palm of more certainty of knowledge and 
more usefulness of result may be assigned to those pur- 
suits which influence the destiny of men through the 
means of social institutions and wise legislation, and the 
studies which these demand may well place their fol- 
lowers in the front ranks of philosophy. It was mdeed 
characteristic of Jefferson, that all his actions were 



imbued by his learning — that, to use his own expression, 
"his long hfe was as much devoted to study as a faithful 
"transaction of the trusts committed to him would per- 
"mit," and that his peculiar genius enabled him to unite 
the retired love of science with the practical energy of 
the world. No part therefore of his varied career will 
be foreign to our present purpose of commemorating his 
services and estimating his character. vv 

^ Thomas Jefterson was born on the 2d day of April 
1743, in the county of Albemarle in Virginia. His 
ancestors had at an early period emigrated from England 
to that colony where his grandfather was born. Of that 
gentleman little is known, and of his son the only cir- 
cumstance much circulated is, that he was one of the 
commissioners for settling the boundary between Vir- 
ginia and North Carolina, and assisted in forming 
the map of Virginia, published under the name of Fry 
and Jefferson. These occupations require and pre- 
suppose studies of a liberal and scientific nature — but 
his character presents nothing remarkable; and our 
Thomas Jefferson, instead of the accidental lustre which 
may be conferred by distinguished ancestry, enjoys the 
higher glory of being the first to illustrate his name. 
The patrimony derived from them placed him in a con- 
dition of moderate aflHuence, far beyond want yet not 
above exertion, that temperate zone of life most propi- 
tious to the culture of the heart and the understanding. 
He received his education at the college of William and 
Mary; on leaving which, he commenced the study of 
law under Chancellor Wythe, and after attaining his 
majority was elected a member of the state legislature. 
During several years afterwards he was engaged in a 
successful and lucrative practice — and it is attested by 



one*, eminently fitted by his own merit to appreciate that 
of others, that his arguments, which are still preserved, 
on the most intricate questions of law, prove his ability 
to reach the highest honours of his profession. Undoubt- 
edly the vigour of mind which he could bring to any 
pursuit would have rendered him distinguished in it; 
but his repugnance to public speaking would probably 
have prevented his attaining great eminence as an advo- 
cate, and we may not regret that the intellectual disci- 
pline and acuteness of that profession were soon applied 
to his duties as a member of the legislature, and to those 
liberal studies which prepared him for the great crisis 
which was rapidly approaching. Of that event the first 
impulse was to startle into vigour the whole intellect of 
the country, to summon all its citizens to active duties, 
and to make every occupation and every profession yield 
up its brightest and its bravest to the camp and the senate. 
It is at such an hour, compared to which the excitements 
of ordinary existence are utterly spiritless, that the 
native strength of the human character is displayed in 
the moral sublimity of its nature. It is then are roused 
from the depths of their own musings the master spirits 
whom the common interests of life could not tempt from 
their seclusion, but who now come forth with the conta- 
gious enthusiasm of genius, and assume at once the 
dominion which less gifted minds are content to acknow- 
ledge and obey. In this commotion of all the original 
intellects of America, Jefferson yielded at once to the 
inspiration, and was from that hour devoted to the great 
cause of freedom./ 

In the year 1774 he was elected a member of the con- 



* Mr Wirt, Attorney General of the United States. 



vention of Virginia which appointed the delegates to the 
first congress ; but being prevented by sickness from 
reaching the seat of government, he sent on a project of 
the instructions with which he thought these delegates 
should be furnished. Struck by its force the convention 
caused it to be published under the name of " A sum- 
"mary of the rights of British America, set forth in some 
" resolutions intended for the inspection of the present 
" delegates of the people of Virginia now in convention, 
" by a native and member of the house of burgesses." 
This was the first work of Jefferson, then a youth of 
twenty-one years of age, and is so characteristic of 
its author, that it contains all the germs of those princi- 
ples and modes of thought and even of expression which 
his subsequent life developed and matured. Although 
published in a form different from that originally design- 
ed, it is in fact a series of resolutions which he had 
intended to move in the convention instructing the de- 
puties in congress from Virginia to propose an address 
to the king representing the complaints of the Ainerican 
colonies. Its form is therefore somewhat technical, but 
in enumerating the causes of complaint, the resolutions 
are so blended with the reasons of them, as to present 
a full view of the encroachments of the British govern- 
ment. But its most striking peculiarity is its general 
tone and spirit, which make it the natural precursor of 
the declaration of independence. 

The delegates are instructed to represent to the king 
their hopes, " that this their joint address, penned in the 
" language of truth and divested of those expressions of 
" servility which would persuade his majesty that we are 
" asking favours and not rights, shall obtain from his 
" majesty a more respectful acceptance ; and this his 
" majesty will think we have reason to expect when he 



10 

" reflects that he is no more than the chief officer of the 
" people, appointed by the laws and circumscribed with 
" definitive powers to assist in working the great machine 
" of government erected for their use and consequently 
" subject to their superintendence." 

The wrongs of the colonies are then recapitulated in 
a strain of eloquent boldness, till kindling with the enthu- 
siasm of the subject he concludes thus : 

•' These are our grievances, which we have thus laid 
" before his majesty with that freedom of language and 
" sentiment which becomes a free people claiming their 
" rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as 
" the gift of their chief magistrate. Let those flatter 
" who fear, it is not an American art. To give praise 
" which is not due might be well from the venal, but 
" would ill beseem those who are asserting the rights of 
" human nature. They know, and will therefore say, 
" that kings are the servants, not the proprietors, of the 
" people. Open your breast, sire, to liberal and expand- 
" ed thought; let not the name of George the Third be 
" a blot on the page of history. You are surrounded by 
" British counsellors, but remember that they are parties. 
" You have no ministers for American affairs, because 
" you have none taken from among us, nor amenable to 
" the laws on which they are to give you advice. It 
" behoves you therefore to think and to act for yourself 
" and your people. The great principles of right and 
" wrong are legible to every reader ; to pursue them re- 
" quires not the aid of many counsellors. The whole 
" art of government consists in the art of being honest. 
" Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you 

" credit where you fail We are willing on our 

" own part to sacrifice every thing which reason can ask 
" to the restoration of that tranquillity for which all must 



11 

" wish. On their part let them be ready to establish 
" union and a generous plan. Let them name their 
" terms, but let them be just. Accept of every com- 
" mercial preference it is in our power to give for such 
" things as we can raise for their use or they make for 
" ours. But let them not think to exclude us from 
" going to other markets to dispose of those commodities 
" which they cannot use or to supply those wants which 
" they cannot supply. Still less let it be proposed 
" that our properties within our own territories shall be 
" taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own. 
" The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same 
*' time; the hand of force may destroy but cannot disjoin 
" them. This, sire, is our last, our determined resolu- 
" tion." 

The reputation acquired by this production, naturally 
directed the eyes of the legislature towards him, when 
in the following year, 1775, it became necessary to 
answer what was called "the conciliatory proposition" 
of lord North. This otter was, that if any colony would 
defray the expense of its own government and its own 
defence, it should be exempt from taxation by parliament 
except for the regulation of trade, which tax should still 
be levied for the account of the colony. The accep- 
tance of this proposal the answer denounced in a tone 
of indignation, as seducing them from their fidelity to 
their American brethren. The conclusion is worthy of 
of such magnanimity: 

" For ourselves we have exhausted every mode of ap- 
" plication which our invention could suggest as proper 
" and promising. We have decently remonstrated with 
" parliament, they have added new injuries to the old. 
" We have wearied our king with supplications, he has 
" not deigned to answer us. We have appealed to the 



12 

" native honour and justice of the British nation, their 

"efforts in our favour have been ineffectual. What 

" then remains to be done 1 That vie commit our inju- 

" ries to the even handed justice of that Being who doth 

" no wrong, earnestly beseeching him to illuminate the 

" counsels and prosper the endeavours of those to whom 

" America hath confided her hopes, that through their 

" wise directions we may again see reunited the blessings 

" of liberty, prosperity, and harmony with Great Britain." 

The extraordinary freedom of this answer acquired 

' for him the distinction of being proscribed in a bill 

\ which passed the house of lords, and excepted from the 

general pardon authorized to the rest of his rebellious 

countrymen. 

At length the impulse of events and of his own genius 
hastened him onward, and in the same year he was 
elected to the congress of the union, and joined that 
body at Philadelphia in June 1775. It was then that 
he first saw, face to face, the men with whom he had 
been so long co-operating, that he first knew Franklin, 
the Adamss, and all the strong intellects and the firm 
hearts by whom they were surrounded. Among these 
he was immediately recognized, by the instinct which 
attracts to each other kindred minds in times of danger, 
as a master spirit worthy to share their deepest coun- 
sels. They found him fearless in temper, fertile in re- 
sources, prompt in pouring out the stores of his accu- 
mulated knowledge, and, though indisposed for public 
speaking, distinguished above them all for the energy of 
style in wjiich he could convey his and their own strong 
conceptions. When such men came to know each other 
and to know their adversaries, to feel the full conscious- 
ness of their own power, it was utterly impossible that 
they could ever be rebuked into submission or ever be 



1<r> 
O 

diivon back into their colonial allegiance. The fearful 
inequality of force seems already overmatched by the 
greater leaders and tlie nobler cause — nor can despair 
find any place in this controversy about the rights of 
men, between lord North and lord Dartmouth and the 
Earl of Hillsborough on one side, and on the other 
Washington, Franklin, the Adamss, and Jeffersoti, — a 
contest between the forgotten mediocrity of respectable 
persons in office, and the enduring genius of the founders 
of a great empire. 

The succeeding year reassembled them in that con- 
gress of 1776, destined to form an a?ra in history, and 
which is still without an equal or a rival among all the 
public bodies which have sv^ayed the fate of nations. 
They soon perceived that this colonial and proscribed 
existence was no longer tolerable, and that the hour had 
now come when all their strength was to be summoned 
up for a final renunciation of the dominion of England. 
To announce and to vindicate this determination was 
assigned to Jetierson, who then composed that state 
paper which has given to its author so memorable a 
celebrity under the name of the declaration of inde- 
pendence. 

It is a decisive proof of the consideration which he 
enjoyed in congress, that in selecting five of their most 
distinguished members for the solenm purpose of com- 
posing this instrument, Jefl'erson, although only thirty- 
three years of age and one of the youngest members of 
congress, received the greatest number of votes, and of 
course presided over the committee. When they met, 
they delegated to Jefterson and John Adams the task of 
preparing the sketch of it — and then after some mutual 
expressions from each that the other should perform it, 
Jefterson yielded to the wishes of his elder colleague, 

r» 
O 



14 

and repairing to his lodgings betook himself to the great 
work allotted to him. These lodgings — it will be heard 
with pleasure by all who feel the interest which genius 
inspires for the minutest details of its history — he had 
selected with his characteristic love of retirement in a 
house recently built on the outskirts of the city, and 
almost the last dwelling house to the westward, where in 
a small family he was the sole boarder. That house is 
now a warehouse in the centre of Philadelphia, standing 
at the south west corner of Market and Seventh streets, 
and on the second story were the rooms of Jefferson 
where the declaration of Independence was written. 
He then presented it to the committee by whom only a 
few slight and verbal alterations were made at the sug- 
gestion of Franklin and Adams, but in its progress 
thnnigh congress it underwent several modifications. 
The author seems to have deemed these changes inju- 
rious, but posterity will not I tiiink concur in this opi- 
nion. There were several phrases inspired by the first 
ardour of composition which were advantageously omit- 
ted or altered, and a passage on the slave trade, emi- 
nently beautiful in itself, was retrenched by the severer 
judgment of congress, as calculated to excite unneces- 
sary irritation in the south. But the changes are 
comparatively so few, that in all literary justice the 
authorship of it must be ascribed to Jefterson. A fasti- 
dious criticism has objected to some of its expressions, 
and to the universal accuracy of some of its abstract 
propositions. These may be readily vindicated, nor is 
there more foundation for the reproach of an undue 
harshness towards the character of the sovereign of 
England. With whatever kindness we may regard the 
reputation of that king in many respects so estimable, 
the measures which his government was pursuing towards 



15 

America warranted every severity of language, and 
moreover great efforts of power and of passion cannot 
be appreciated without reference to the excitements 
which inspired them. The protracted struggle with 
England had irritated the mind of the country to an 
anxious exasperation. In taking the final step decisive 
of their own and their country's fortunes, it was no part 
of the policy of its leaders to soften these feelings, but 
rather to awaken the passions, to rouse all the indigna- 
tion of their countrymen, and to direct their full and 
concentered and impetuous energy against their oppres- 
sors. And then its very roughness is appropriate. It 
were scarce seemly that the corner stone of this great 
temple of freedom should be overpolished. It is well 
that its stern massiveness should accord with the strong 
and doric simplicity of the columns it sustains. It is 
well that the racy and even impassioned originality of 
this indignant remonstrance against the abuses of power 
should remain like the chisel marks of the great sculptor 
of Italy as if in disdain of minute perfections. There 
was nothing equal to it, there was nothing like it in all 
the revolutions resembling our own, neither by the Swiss 
who overthrew the dominion of the house of Austria, nor 
the Portuguese in annulling their allegiance to Spain, 
nor the Dutch in their successful resistance to their 
foreign rulers. Even in the annals of England, the 
noblemen who at Runymede extorted from their sove- 
reign the great charter gave no reasons but their swords, 
and the barbarous and feudal latinity of that long paper 
grates with almost as harsh a dissonance on our ears as 
it did on those of the reluctant signer of it. In still 
later times, when the house of commons alarmed Charles 
the First into an acknowledgment of their liberties 
scarcely inferior to the great charter itself, the "petition 



16 

"of right" which secured them has the verbose formality 
of a legal record. But it was among the many dis- 
tinctions of this great quarrel to be announced in a strain 
corresponding with its dignity. It was essentially an 
intellectual warfare, a contest of prophecy, in which 
they who would not brook the practical oppression went 
out to resist the principle, and where mere success would 
have lost its value unless it was proved to be deserved. 
To accomplish this they warned the British government, 
they besought the British nation, in those admirable 
addresses which invoked equally the reason and the 
feelings of the parent state, till wearied with unheeded 
remonstrance and finding no resource but in their own 
hearts, they made this their last appeal to God alone. 

Accordingly the declaration of independence is among 
the noblest productions of the human intellect. It stands 
apart, alike the first example and the great model of 
its species — of that simple eloquence worthy of convey- 
ing to the world and to posterity the deep thoughts and 
the stern purposes of a proud yet suffering nation. It 
contains nothing new, for the grave spirits of that con- 
gress were too intent on their great work to aspire after 
ambitious novelties. But it embodies the eternal truths 
which lie at the foundation of all free governmerjts. It 
announces with singular boldness and self possession 
their wrongs and their determination to redress them. 
It sustains that purpose in a tone of such high and manly 
and generous enthusiasm — it breathes around an atmos- 
phere of so clear and fresh an elevation, and then it 
concludes with such an heroic self devotion, that it is 
impossible even at this distant day to hear it without a 
thrill to the soul. It seems like the gushing out of an 
oppressed but still uncon<iuered spirit; the voice of a 
wounded nation unsubdued even in its agony. They 



17 

have at last met; — the genuine descendants of the 
northern pilgrims, of Penn, and of Raleigh ; — they have 
come from the far extremes of climate, of tastes, and of 
manners, to this the common battle field, for the great 
principles of freedom, equally dear to them all. They 
feel untamed within them the adventurous spirit which 
first planted their race on this desert; and they bring 
to this desperate struggle the stubborn devotedness of 
purpose, the unyielding calmness of resolution, and the 
impetuous passions infused with the blood of their an- 
cestry. But the chivalry with which these ancestors 
threw themselves on thie ocean, to leave their homes and to 
make their country, was even less heroic than this proud 
defiance to the unbroken power of England. Their 
fathers came here because they would not endure the 
intolerance they left behind, and they brought with them 
the stern uncompromising temper which they had shared 
with the roused spirit of England during that tempest 
in which the commonwealth was established and over- 
thrown. It could not be that such men would long obey 
the dominion of strangers; or that having built up their 
sequestered place of refuge where they might breathe 
to God their vows in their own sincere simplicity, and 
lie in the sunny spots which they had hewed out of the 
wilderness beyond the reach of the cold shade of power, 
they would ever submit to see their harvests reaped by 
the hands which had driven them into exile. At the first 
signal of oppression they had started into resistance. 
Their early reverses only hardened the temper they could 
not subdue, — and now, they stand so erect in the des- 
peration of their fortunes, so young, so weak, so lonely, — 
yet even in that moment of danger their voice is as firm, 
their demeanour as lofty, as in the earliest glow of their 



18 

prosperity, and after reciting their wrongs in the tone 
rather of a conqueror than a suppliant, they renounce 
forever the dominion which had ceased to deserve their 
allegiance, and then raise the standard of their own 
young freedom to perish for it, or to perish with it. Their 
success has consecrated that standard to aftertimes, and 
in every land where men have struggled against oppres- 
sion their dreams have been of that declaration of inde- 
pendence which is now the magna charta of humanity. 
In the September following he was appointed a com- 
missioner to France in conjunction with Franklin and 
Deane, but in consequence of the state of his family he 
declined accepting it, and having resigned his seat in 
congress was elected a member of the house of dele- 
gates of Virginia which met in October 1776. While 
there, he was appointed, in conjunction with Wythe and 
Pendleton, to prepare a code of laws for that state. Of 
these distinguished associates, one died in the progress 
of the work, and the other withdrew from it, so that the 
burthen and the glory of this service belong to Jefferson. 
After being occupied with it for more than two years, 
he presented to the legislature in June 1779 the result 
of his labours in what is called the revised code. Tts 
object was to simplify the laws, by reducing into a single 
code the whole body of the British statutes and of the 
common law, so far as they were applicable to Virginia, 
and the acts of the state legislature. This mere revision 
could have been accomplished by ordinary jurists, but 
that which stamps the work with the seal of his peculiar 
genius was the adaptation of the laws of Virginia to its 
new political condition. It was evident that as no form 
of political constitution can be permanent unless sus- 
tained by a corresponding legislation, it was necessary 



19 

to readjust the foundations of the commonwealth, and 
more especially to modify the laws with regard to slavery, 
to entails, to primogeniture, and to religion. 

He had begun by obtaining the passage of a law pro- 
hibiting the further importation of slaves. His plan for 
their gradual emancipation was this : — All slaves born 
after the establishment of the law were to be free, to 
continue with their parents until a certain age, then to 
be brought up to useful callings at the public expense 
until the age of eighteen for females, and twenty-one 
for males, when they were to be sent with implements 
of war and husbandry to some colony, where they should 
be protected until able to defend themselves. In the 
same spirit, the constitution which he prepared in 1783 
contained a provision against the introduction of slaves, 
and for the emancipation of all born after the year 1800. 
To estimate the merit of these enlightened views, it is not 
sufficient to remember that they were proposed in the 
bosom of a slave population by a statesman whose for- 
tunes were to be affected by them — but it is essential to 
contrast them with the conduct of those in other coun- 
tries who have presumed to reproach the inhabitants of 
America with their system of slavery. If indeed there 
be any people on earth who should be exempt from 
censure for holding slaves, it must be the people of this 
country. Unquestionably it is among the things to be 
forgiven, and forgotten too unless recalled by the re- 
bukes of others, that over the fairest portions of this 
country, in defiance of the petition and remonstrance 
and persevering legislation of its inhabitants, the ministry 
of England persisted in breathing this fatal pestilence, 
for the sole reason that to buy or to steal black men on 
the coast of Africa, and sell them into slavery on the 
coast of America, was a lucrative employment of British 



20 

capital. Even in this very year 1783, while these owners 
of slaves were intent on a generous sacrifice of their 
interests in compassion to the human race, when the 
society of Friends presented to the British parliament 
the first petition against the slave trade, it was dismissed 
with the calm politeness of lord North, who " regretted 
" that the trade against which the petition was so justly 
" directed was in a commercial view necessary to almost 
" every nation in Europe." 

His second measure was the abolition of entails. 
Governments, which extend equal rights to all their 
citizens, can be best maintained by preventing any 
excessive inequality of condition among them, consistent 
with the full exercise of individual power over the fruits 
of industry. The law of entail, as transferred from 
England, had so seconded the natural tendency to build 
up large fortunes, that, to use the language of Jefferson, 
" by accumulating immense masses of property in single 
" lines of families, it had divided our country into two 
" distinct orders of nobles and plebeians." Against 
such tendencies, as inconsistent with the improved con- 
dition of the state, he succeeded in obtaining a law. 

He resisted with equal success another part of the 
system which assigned an unequal distribution of fortune 
among the members of the same family. To the moral 
sense it seems a strange perversity to bestow on the 
oldest and strongest of any family the inheritance of the 
common parent, — that to him who needs least most should 
be given, while to the helplessness of infancy and the 
inexperience of the gentler sex are denied what is most 
necessary for their subsistence and protection. It 
requires all the exigencies of a political system to bend 
the natural feelings of mankind to such an arrangement; 
and the moment this artificial policy ceases its claims, 



21 

the moment it is no longer necessary to make one 
domestic despot in order to swell the number of public 
tyrants, what parent would bequeath to his children 
this inheritance of disunion and injustice *? Jefferson 
accordingly established an equal division of property 
among all the children of the same family. 

The easy naturalization of foreigners, the proportion- 
ing of punishment to crimes, and the establishment of 
common schools throughout the state, form other parts 
of his system. But there remained one great achieve- 
ment, the security of religious freedom. 

The church of England, as established in Virginia, 
required a permanent contribution for its support from 
every citizen, and a law of the state prescribed that any 
person of either sex, unless protestant dissenters exempt- 
ed by act of parliament, who omitted to attend the 
church service for one month should be fined and in 
default of payment receive corporal punishment. The 
neighbourhood of Maryland appears to have excited no 
tenderness towards the religion of that state ; for if any 
person suspected to be a Catholic refused to take cer- 
tain oaths, he was subjected to the most degrading 
disqualifications. To undermine this fanaticism, Jeffer- 
son began by procuring a suspension of the salaries of 
the clergy for one year. Other years of similar suspense 
succeeded, till at length the public sentiment was pre- 
pared for his plan, which formed originally part of the 
revised code, but was not finally enacted until the year 
1786, when during his absence the care of it devolved on 
the kindred mind of him who was equally worthy to be 
his friend in all stations and his successor in the highest, 
James Madison. The preamble of this law explains its 
motives with a nervous eloquence. "Our civil rights," it 
asserts, "have no dependence on our religious opinions, 
4 



22 

'• more than our opinions in physics or geometry, that 
*' therefore the proscribing every citizen as unworthy of 
"public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity 
"of being called to the offices of trust or emolument, 
" unless he profess or renounce this or that religious 
" opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges 
" and advantages to which in common with his fellow 
"citizens he has a natural right; that it tends also to 
" corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant 
" to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly 
" honours and emoluments those who will externally 
" profess and conform to it." And accordingly the law 
declares " That no man shall be compelled to frequent 
" or support any religious worship, place, or ministry 
" whatsoever, nor shall he be enforced, restrained, mo- 
" lested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall 
" otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions, 
" but that all men shall be free to profess and by argu- 
" ment to maintain their opinion in matters of religion, 
" and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, 
" or affect their civil capacities." The long enjoyment 
of this blessing has diminished our sensibility to its 
value, for to the people of this country it is scarcely 
conceivable how one class of citizens shall proscribe 
another class for a different mode of worshipping the 
same deity, nor can we imagine any more melancholy 
triumph of prejudice over the justice and the charities 
of our nature than the strange intolerance which in the 
country of our ancestors still resists the liberal spirit of 
the age. Without presuming to mingle in a question 
exclusively her own, we may be permitted to hope, for 
her own fair fame, that she will be able to reconcile the 
claims of power and the rights of conscience, and that 
this remnant of ancient policy which at once corrupts 



the church and weakens the state may be discarded 
with the bigotry or the danger which suggested it. 

On completing the revised code, he was elected in 
the year 1779 governor of Virginia, which place he held 
for two years. About that period Mr Marbois, of the 
French legation, being desirous of collecting informa- 
tion with regard to the United States, prepared certain 
queries, a copy of which he addressed to a member of 
congress from each of the states. The member from 
Virginia requested Jetferson to answer these inquiries. 
This he accordingly did in the year 1781, and enlarged 
his observations in the year 1782, when a few copies 
were printed for the use of his friends; but it was not 
until the year 1787 that the work appeared in its present 
form, under the unassuming title of "Notes on Virginia." 
A translation into French by the Abbe Morellet was 
printed at Paris in the same year. It professes to be an 
answer to Mr Marbois's queries in the order in which they 
were presented, and to give the outlines of the history, 
geography, and general statistics of Virginia. But it is 
not so much in the details of the work, though these are 
perfectly well digested, as in the free and manly sense, 
the fine philosophical temper, and the liberal feeUng 
which pervade it, that consists its principal attraction. 
Constitutions, laws, the nature and consequences of do- 
mestic slavery, are all discussed with an impartiality 
which displays the independent spirit of the writer. 
Here too he overthrew the idle fancy of Butibn as to 
the inferiority of the animal creation of the new world. 
It is difficult not to admire the perfectly respectful and 
modest tone in which he ventures to difter from the 
greatest naturalist of his day on a question peculiarly 
within the province of his studies; yet the refutation is 
so complete as to leave no doubt that, even reasoning 



24 

on the materials accessible to both, Jefferson had the 
superiority. — Since then, the mammoth, and the western 
bear, and his own megalonyx have successfully vindi- 
cated our animals from this alleged inferiority, which is 
jiow exploded from natural history. 

Having in the Notes on Virginia stated the defects of 
its constitution, he proposed to remedy them in a form 
of government prepared in 1783, when it was expected 
that a convention would be assembled for that purpose; 
but as the convention was not called, the plan was 
appended to the Notes on Virginia. It now possesses 
peculiar interest as the depository of his matured opi- 
nions on the true organization of a commonwealth ; and 
having preceded by some years the present constitution 
of the United States, may claim the merit of originality. 
It may be interesting to examine some of its peculiari- 
ties by the light of the political philosophy of the present 
day after the experience of more than half a century. 

He proposed that the two branches of the legislature 
should be chosen by the free citizens enrolled in the 
militia, or possessing a real estate so small, as in fact to 
recognize what is now called universal suffrage. To 
this principle an undue importance seems attached by 
both its friends and its enemies, for in our institutions 
any discrimination which would be tolerated or tolerable 
could exclude only an inconsiderable number of voters. 
But the abstract axiom that all who fight and pay should 
vote, though strongly contested at that time and not 
generally acknowledged even now, will I think hereafter 
be regarded as essential to popular institutions. 

He proposed that the judges should be chosen by 
both branches of the legislature, and hold their offices 
during good behaviour, being removable only by im- 
peachment. This complete independence of the judi- 



25 

ciary all subsequent experience has emphatically recom- 
mended. To this department of the government he 
appears willijig to assign more extensive powers than 
are now deemed necessary. The council of revision was 
to consist of three judges and two counsellors of state, 
who with the governor were to possess a negative on the 
acts of the legislature unless re-passed by two thirds of 
both houses, and he afterwards in commenting on the 
present constitution of the United States expressed his 
preference that in conferring the power of negative on 
the president, the judiciary should have " been associated 
" for that purpose, or invested separately with a similar 
" power." Experience however recommends more the 
present position of the judiciary in our institutions, for 
being entirely unconnected with the ordinary duties of 
the legislature, and taking no cognizance of the expe- 
diency of its acts, they can exercise with a more impar- 
tial judgment their appropriate function of carrying 
them into execution unless they conflict with the higher 
authority of the fundamental laws of the country. 

The council of state, the council of revision, and the 
court of impeachment are obsolete incumbrances super- 
seded by the modern improvements of an individual and 
indivisible executive, whose nominations to offices are 
revised by the senate, itself a court of impeachment. 

He proposed further that the governor should be 
elected by the joint vote of the two branches of the legis- 
lature for five years, and then not be re-eligible. This 
choice of the executive by the legislature is not now 
regarded as a judicious combination. The truer the- 
ory is, that as his negative is meant to control the legis- 
lature, his independence on it should be secured by 
deriving his power from the highest source, the people. 
The denial of the privilege of re-election — after one 



M 

long term of service — would probably be more approved 
now than when he first suggested it. 

On leaving the government of Virginia, he was ap- 
pointed a minister plenipotentiary to unite with those 
already in Europe in negociating a peace between the 
United States and England, but at the moment of em- 
barking intelligence arrived of the signature of that 
treaty. He returned to congress in 1783, and in the 
following year was sent to Europe to join Franklin and 
John Adams as plenipotentiaries' to arrange with the 
several powers of Europe their future commercial rela- 
^ tions with the United Slates. They framed a treaty with 
I Prussia only, after which Jefferson visited England for 
* a few weeks in order to assist in an effort which proved 
abortive to make a treaty with that power. On the 
return of Franklin, he was appointed his successor as 
minister plenipotentiary to France, where he remained 
for several years. During his residence in Paris his 
public duties were chiefly confined to the details of the 
commercial intercourse between the two countries, and 
the diligent performance of these left him leisure for the 
cultivation of every species of liberal knowledge. His 
fame which had preceded him, and his public station, 
secured him a welcome reception in those circles which 
were at the head of European civilization ; his house was 
the resort of all who were distinguished for science in 
the French capital : and his active mind did not fail to 
profit by these opportunities of enlarging the sphere of 
his acquirements and of accumulating every thing that 
promised to benefit his country. Among other instances 
may be mentioned his letter to the agricultural society 
of Charleston, detailing the information acquired during 
his visit to the south of France with regard to such pro- 
ductions as could be naturalized in the southern states, 



27 

and offering his services to facilitate the transmission of 
them. He recommends the caper, and more especially 
the olive of which he remarks, "having been myself an 
"eye witness to the blessings which this tree sheds on the 
"poor, I never had my wishes so kindled for the intro- 
"duction of any article of new culture into our country." 
To this should be added that the south owes to him also 
the upland rice, which thriving out of the swamps may 
it is hoped one day supersede the lowland plant which, 
as he observes, "sows life and death with almost equal 
" hand." 

Near the close of his mission the revolution assembled 
at Paris the constituent assembly, whose leaders were 
naturally attracted towards the representative of the 
United States. It would have been fortunate for them 
as well as for France had they always possessed so judi- 
cious an adviser. Of the esteem in which he was held 
it is a singular evidence that when the two parties were 
unable to agree on the question of making the legis- 
lature consist of one or of two houses, they determined 
to consult Jefferson, and their respective chiefs, Sieyes, 
Barnave, Mounier, and others repaired to him in a body 
for that purpose. He strenuously recommended the divi- 
sion, but the majority could not be induced to acquiesce 
in his views, and they became sensible, when it was too 
late, of their error. 

// He returned from France in November 1789 on a 
/ visit to his family, but instead of resuming his place 
l' he yielded to the request of general Washington, and/ 
in April 1790 accepted the office of secretary of stat^" 
under the new constitution. Here he soon evincedl 
^ that in enlarging his acquirements he had lost none! 
I of his practical sagacity as a statesman. His depart-t 
i ment was in fact to be created, our diplomatic rela-^ 
^tions under the new government to be established, and^ 



the general arrangement of our intercourse Avitli for- 
eign nations to be organized. Then arose the difficul- 
ties growing out of the French revolution, and it was 
his peculiar duty to sustain the rights of the country 
against the pretensions of England and France, and to 
vindicate the neutrality of our government. The in- 
terest of these discussions has passed with the occasion, 
as more refcent facts and longer experience have in some 
degree superseded them; but there are three of his 
public labours at that period entitled to particular re- 
membrance. The first is his report on foreign commerce, 
which anticipates the liberal policy of the present day 
as the true basis of our commercial intercourse — perfect 
equality to all who will reciprocate it, and restrictions 
only in self defence against the restrictions of others. The 
second is his correspondence with the British minister 
on the mutual complaints of the two countries — which 
combines with great force of reasoning and perspicuity 
of style a tone of dignified courtesy rarely seen in 
similar papers. The third is his report on weights and 
measures, which presents in a clear and condensed form 
all the knowledge of that day on this interesting and 
intricate question. / 

He withdrew from this station on the 1st of January 
1794, and resumed his tranquil pursuits at home. These 
however he was not long suliered to enjoy, for in the 
year 1797 he was elected vicepresident of the United 
States, an office more considerable and more considered 
than it has since become. While two persons were 
selected, either of whom might be president, both were 
presumed qualified for it. The change which has since 
required that the office of each should be designated, 
though perfectly judicious in itself, has diminished the 
relative importance of the vicepresidency, and its dignity 



29 

was its chief consolation for its want of power. It was 
however filled with great distinction by Jeiierson who, 
not content to remain inactive in any station, com- 
posed the system of rules known by tlie name of " Jetier- 
" son's Manual" ; a digest of the parliamentary practice 
of England with such modifications as had been adopt- 
ed by the senate or are suggested by the ditierence 
between the British and American legislatures. This 
small volume has so condensed the rules of legislative 
proceedings as to supersede except tor occasional refe- 
rence the works of Grey and Hatsell and the other 
treatises on the same subject, and is now the standard 
authority in congress and the slate legislatures. 

It was while about to assume this office that on the 
6th of January 1797 the discerinnent of our society 
selected him as its president on the death of llitten- 
house. The answer to the committee who notified to 
him his election may now be recalled with a melancholy 
pleasure. " The sufirage," says he, " of a body which 
" comprehends whatever the American world has of 
" distinction and philosophy in general is the most flat- 
" tering incident of my life, and that to which I am most 
"sensible. My satisfaction would be complete were it 
" not for the consciousness that it is far beyond my titles. 
"I feel no qualifications for this distinguished post but 
" a sincere zeal for all the objects of our institution, and 
" an ardent desire to see knowledge so disseminated 
" through the mass of mankind that it may at last reach 
" the extremes of society, beggars and kings." And 
then, alluding to the merits of his predecessors he re- 
marks, " surely no society till ours within the same com- 
" pass of time ever had to deplore the loss of two such 
" members as Franklin and Rittenhouse." We may now 
add, with no unbecoming pride, that few societies can 



30 

boast such a succession of presidents as Franklin, Ritten- 
house, Jefferson, Wistar, and Patterson. 

The contributions of one so occupied as he necessarily 
became could not be numerous, yet our transactions 
attest that he was not an inactive member. The first 
of his communications was a letter to our late valued 
and accomplished colleague colonel Jonathan Williams 
on the barometrical measurement of the mountains of 
Virginia. The second was entitled " A memoir on the 
" discovery of certain bones of a quadruped of the clawed 
" kind in the western parts of Virginia," read on the 10th 
of March 1797. Its purpose was to explain that on dig- 
ging in one of the nitre caves of Virginia the workmen 
discovered some bones of an extraordinary size, which 
on examination he believed to belong to the unquiculated 
quadrupeds of which the lion was the nearest ; but in- 
ferring his general stature from these remains, he con- 
cluded that he must have been more than three times 
the size of the lion. He therefore gave him the name 
of megalonyx or great claw from the unusual size of 
that part, and assigned him a station at the head of the 
clawed animals, similar to that of the mammoth in regard 
to the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the hippopotamus 
It was afterwards conjectured that the animal to which 
these bones belonged was the same with the megathe- 
rium, a species of bradypus or sloth, whose remains have 
been discovered in Paraguay. But a re-examination of 
them by professor Wistar satisfied him that they differed 
from the bones of the megatherium. This opinion has 
since been confirmed by the inquiries of Cuvier and 
other naturalists which have ended in the recognition of 
the animal by the appropriate name conferred by Jeffer- 
son of megalonyx, but have withdrawn some of his 
honours by degrading him from the family of the lion into 



31 

that of the bradypus or sloth. It should be remarked 
that Jefferson's belief of the similarity of the megalonyx 
to the lion was founded on a comparison of the bones of 
the first with the description of the second in Daubenton ; 
but in a postscript to his memoir he states that he had 
seen an imperfect account of the discovery in Paraguay, 
and was struck by resemblances between the mega- 
therium and his megalonyx, but not having a detailed 
report of the former he thought it better to retain the 
difference of name. It is probable that had the mega- 
therium been sufficiently described as it has since been, 
Jefferson would of himself have assigned to the megal- 
onyx the place he now occupies. 

A third communication was his description of a mould 
board for a plough, of the least resistance and the most 
certain and easy construction, taken from a letter to sir 
John Sinclair, and read in May 1798. 

The mould board of a plough, when it receives the 
sod horizontally from the wing, has two functions to per- 
form ; the first is, to raise the sod to the proper height to 
be turned over, and then to raise one side of it so as 
actually to turn it over. The problem is to combine 
these movements in a form of mould board which offer- 
ing the least resistance will require the least moving 
power. This he thought he had found in the form of a 
rising wedge, and a trial of several years satisfied him of 
the utility of his invention. Whether it will be generally 
adopted must be seen hereafter, but we may all enjoy 
what I well remember to have felt, when the presiding 
officer of the agricultural society of Paris delivered, with 
an appropriate commentary, a premium for this plough 
to be sent to the inventor, then president of the United 
States. It was equally gratifying to the mora) sense as 
to the pride of country, that while the rulers of other 



32 

nations were busied with far other instruments than the 
plough, were calculating lor far different purposes what 
would furnish the least resistance, were distributing 
honours to excite or reward the destruction of their 
fellowmen, our chief magistrate had triumphed in the 
competition to improve that earliest and noblest instru- 
ment of peace which disturbs only to bless the bosom of 
the earth, and was never yet perverted to oppression or 
injustice. 

This was not the only distinction he received in France. 
He was a member of the Institute, that illustrious body 
— the intellectual nobility of Europe — which has long 
been the principal depository of the learning of the Eu- 
ropean continent. In the subdivision of its members, 
he was assigned to the " Class of History and Ancient 
" Literature," which, since the restoration of the Bour- 
bons, has resumed its title of "The Royal Academy of 
Inscriptions and Belles Lettres," and consists of forty 
resident members, eight foreign associates, and sixty 
correspondents. The value of this honour may be in- 
ferred from the fact that Jefferson is the only citizen of 
our country on whom it has been bestowed, and from 
the character of his colleagues, the eight foreign as- 
sociates being Jefferson of the United States, Rennel and 
Wilkins of England, Ouvaroff of Russia, Sestini of Italy, 
Heeren of Gottingen, Creuser of Heidelberg, and Wil- 
liam Humboldt of Berlin. 

His services were now to receive their highest reward 
by his advancement to the presidency of the United 
States on the 4th of March 1801, and his re-election in 
1805. Of the political acts of his administration it is 
unnecessary to speak, as they have scarcely yet passed 
the shadowy confine which separates the passions of 



33 

party from the deliberate judgment of history; and it 
will be more grateful to seek m the annals of his chief 
magistracy what may endear it to science and philan- 
thropy. Its great ornament undoubtedly is the acqui- 
sition of Louisiana. This was essentially a measure 
characteristic of him, in the true spirit of his own policy, 
a peaceful and fair exchange of equivalents between 
states for their mutual advantage. The ordinary addi- 
tions of territory among nations come in the train of 
conquest and are yielded with reluctance and humilia- 
tion. It was reserved for Jefierson by a simple act of 
honest policy, too distinguished for its rarity, by a nego- 
tiation destitute of all the common attractions of suc- 
cessful artifice or violence, to double the extent and to 
secure the tranquillity of his country. Nor were the 
usual temptations to violence wanting. The obstruction 
of the right of deposit at New Orleans had roused the 
indignation of the country, and a proposal was made in 
congress to seize that city. But this excitement yielded 
to the more temperate counsels of Jefferson, who thought 
with Numa that no blood should be shed at the rites of 
the god Terminus; and who, by this addition to the mass 
of human happiness, by this winning over to civilization 
a country destined to be filled by a free and happy 
people, obtained afar purer and nobler glory than could 
be yielded by all the victories achieved in the conquest 
of Louisiana. 

Having obtained peaceful possession of it he found a 
gratification equally characteristic in directing several 
voyages of discovery through various parts of it. 

Of these the first in order and inrportance was the ex- 
pedition of Lewis and Clarke to the Pacific ocean. This 
had always been a favourite object of his contemplation. 
Whilst minister in Paris, he proposed to Ledyard the 



34 



celebrated traveller, to cross from Kamschatka to Nootka 
sound and descending thence to the latitude of the Mis- 
souri proceed by that river to the United States. Ledyard 
embarked with great zeal in this adventure, and having 
obtained through the instrumentality of Jefferson the 
sanction of the empress Catharine, proceeded on his jour- 
ney : but when he had reached the neighbourhood of 
Kamschatka, he was arrested and sent back into Poland 
by some caprice or suspicion of the Russian government. 
In the year 1792 Jefferson proposed to our society to raise 
by subscription a fund to engage some person to ascend 
the Missouri, and cross the mountains to the Pacific, 
and Mr Andre Michaux was employed for that purpose: 
but when he had proceeded as far as Kentucky he too 
was recalled by an order of the French minister. Not 
discouraged by these failures, on his elevation to the 
presidency he renewed the subject, and having obtained 
the necessary sanction from congress fitted out the ex- 
pedition of Lewis and Clarke for the same purpose. 
Their instructions written with his own hand are among 
the most interesting of his works. They were already 
prepared and the party about to undertake their journey, 
when the cession of Louisiana to the United States gave 
to it additional interest and attraction. To this expe- 
dition were added those of major Pike to the sources 
of the Mississippi and afterwards to the Arkansas, of 
colonel Freeman up the Red river, and Messrs Hunter 
and Dunbar up the Washita. The particulars of these 
journeys were conveyed to the public in many works, 
which, containing as they do descriptions of regions the 
greater part of which had never been described nor 
even visited by civilized men, produced large acquisi- 
tions as well to geography as to the other sciences, of 



35 

all which the merit is especially due to the projector 
of them. 

But a service to science not less brilliant and even 
more permanent was the establishment of the military if 
academy at West Point. To war in every shape, as the 
worst mode of redressing injuries and as multiplying 
the evils it professes to remedy, his repugnance was in- 
vincible. But even to his philanthropic spirit, the philo- 
sophy of war, the knowledge of those combinations 
which give to intellect the sway over brutal force, the 
sciences which, though perverted to human destruction, 
are susceptible of a worthier destination, all these pre- 
sented attractions which as a statesman or a lover of 
science it was difficult to resist. Accordingly, on fixing 
the peace establishment of the army in 1802, the engi- 
neers retained in service were assembled at West Point 
to form a military academy, and placed under the 
charge of his friend colonel Williams. This school has 
since expanded with the growing wants of the nation 
till it has become one of the most distinguished semi- 
naries of military science in the world, and its ac- 
complished disciples are now devoting to the improve- 
ment of the country the talents which are equally ready 
for its defence. But the merit of laying its foundation 
is due to the liberal and pacific counsels of Jefferson. 

Among the duties of his office not the least grateful 
was the care of that unhappy race who once possessed 
this country. It need not be regretted, since it is in the 
order of providence, that tribes of savages should gradu- 
ally yield to the progress of civilized men. But how many 
claims have they not on the kindness of those who sup- 
plant them 1 — the claim of ignorance on the superiority of 
our learning — the claim of weakness on our magnanimity 
— titles too often forgotten towards these remnants of 



36 

nations who are melting away on the edge of civiliza- 
tion, and who have been sometimes forced or tempted 
to exchange the soil of their own country for the means 
of indulging the vices of ours. Of tiiese Indians Jeffer- 
son was the uniform friend and protector. He anticipated 
the period when, weaned from their wandering habits by 
the subdivision of property, they would insensibly sink 
into the mass of our communities, and he endeavoured to 
prepare that event, by reclaiming them from their natu- 
ral propensity to war and encouraging their settlement 
in fixed habitations, by the distribution of implements of 
husbandry, by the establishment of schools, and above 
all by the rigorous execution of tiie laws designed to 
save them from the temptations of that passion — the dis- 
grace of civilization but the fatal curse of savage life. 
In these he was eminently successful, and the southern 
tribes most advanced in civilization owe much of their 
progress to his paternal solicitude. 

He had also been particularly attentive to the study 
of Indian languages. He lost no opportunity of ac- 
quiring the most accurate information with regard to 
them, and had accumulated a great mass of knowledge 
which he intended to give to the world, when the ship- 
wreck of the vessel containing his manuscripts obliged 
him to postpone his purpose. 

At the expiration of his second term of service he 
declined a re-election, and withdrawing to his farm at 
Monticello resumed the favourite studies and occupa- 
tions from which his public duties had so long withheld 
him. On this spot, endeared by attachments which had 
descended with it from his ancestors, and scarcely less 
cherished from the embellishments with which his own 
taste had adorned it ; on this elevated seclusion, of which 
more than forty years ago Chastelleux had said, " it 



37 

*' seemed as if from his youth he had placed his mind as 
" he had his house upon a high situation, from which he 
" might contemplate the universe," he appears to have 
realized all that the imagination can conceive of a happy 
retirement, that blessing after which all aspire, but so 
few are destined to enjoy. There lies in the depths of 
every heart, that dream of our youth and the chastened 
wish of manhood, which neither cares nor honours can 
ever extinguish, the hope of one day resting from the 
pursuits which absorb us; of interposing between our old 
age and the tomb some tranquil interval of reflection, 
where, with feelings not subdued but softened, with pas- 
sions not exhausted but mellowed, we may look calmly 
on the past without regret and on the future! without 
apprehension. But in the tumult of the world this 
vision forever recedes as we approach it; the passions 
which have agitated our life disturb our latest hour; and 
men go down to the tomb, like the sun into the ocean, 
with no gentle and gradual withdrawing of the light of 
life back to the source which gave it, but sullen in its 
beamless descent, with all its fiery glow, long after it 
has lost its power and its splendour. — Not so Jefferson — 
He was the first to announce that years had produced 
an effect certainly not sensible to others and to obey 
the voice within which warned him into private life. 
There, surrounded by all that can give lustre or enjoy- 
ment to existence, an exalted reputation, universal 
esteem, the means of indulging in the studies most 
congenial to him, a numerous and affectionate family, 
enlivened by the pilgrimage of strangers who hastened 
to see what they had so long venerated, a correspon- 
dence that still preserved his sympathies with the world 
he had left, blessed with all the consolations which 
gently slope the decline of life, he gave up to philoso- 
6 



38 

phical repose the remainder of that existence aheady 
protracted beyond the ordinary limits assigned to men. 
But it was not in his nature to be unoccupied and his 
last years were devoted to an enterprise every way 
worthy of his character. Aware how essentially free 
institutions depend on the ditiusion of knowledge, he 
endeavoured to establish in his native state a seminary 
of learning ; and his success may be seen in the rising 
prosperity of the University of Virginia, his last and 
crowning work, which has scarcely an equal in the 
annals of science. Such institutions have generally 
been founded by sovereigns whose merit lay in giving 
this liberal direction to some portion of the public reve- 
nue ; by wealthy individuals who bestow the superfluity 
which they cannot enjoy in this world nor carry to the 
next ; by the founders of sects who thus perpetuate their 
pride in the diffusion of their doctrines. But the zeal 
of Jefferson was as disinterested as his success was 
extraordinary. To operate on the miscellaneous and 
variable materials of all large public bodies, to excite 
them to a due conception of this great undertaking, to 
stimulate them in its progress, and infusing into them 
his own enthusiasm to conciliate their good will towards 
expenditures far exceeding their original expectations, 
all these which would have occupied and rewarded the 
whole life of an ordinary man, were the work of a few 
years of the old age of Jefferson. Of this magnificent 
scheme much of the honour is due to the legislative 
bodies who yielded to the salutary influence of his coun- 
sels; but the chief merit is undoubtedly his, and to him 
especially belongs the rare glory of founding an univer- 
sity, as a pure fountain of general knowledge, perverted 
by no obliquities of political or religious doctrine and 
tarnished by no narrow or selfish purpose. 



With these delightful occupations were gratefully 
soothed the declining years of a life which had been, more 
than that of almost all other men, eminently a life of sun- 
shine and of unvarying prosperity. But it was well said, 
let no man be deemed happy till his death ; for even on 
the verge of his tranquil existence there was found room 
enough to plant that pang which seemed reserved at the 
closing hour to avenge the inequa,lities of fortune. This 
is an unwelcome theme, but the history of his life were 
imperfect without it, and perhaps his country which so 
often profited by his successes may yet learn something 
from his misfortunes. The long career of public em- 
ployment which separated him from his domestic con- 
cerns, the incompetency of the emoluments annexed to 
his stations, the distinction which compelled him to the 
exercise of a simple yet costly hospitality, these with 
accidental disasters had so impaired his fortunes, that, 
as the shades of age and infirmity were gathering round 
him, there came in and sat down beside his hearth the 
cold and spectral form of poverty. In the luxuries of 
abundance men disregard that stern but distant being, 
whose invasion they think should be repelled by economy 
or disarmed by resignation. But these salutary truths 
cannot always repress the terrors of this startling in- 
truder. They who have not known prosperity may go 
on unrepining till life is exhausted in the habitual 
struggle with their destiny. But to those who were 
born to aflfluence, whose habits have softened under 
its influence, and whose cultivated minds render them 
doubly sensitive to the happiness of all around them, the 
change comes with an almost overwhelming reality. 
They see the weakness to whose wants they once min- 
istered, yet feel the decay of their power to relieve it, 
they mark one by one the silent abstraction of those 



40 

enjoyments which soothed the infirmities of our nature, 
till at length they are left to brood in despair over the 
wrecks of fallen fortunes, to gaze on the widening circle 
of domestic sorrow, and to witness that ruin which they 
did not make yet cannot repair. This affliction in all its 
acuteness, not for himself, but for those who depended 
on him, seems to have been the lot of Jefferson. But 
the philosophy which he had cultivated teaches men to 
make their own destiny, to be unmoved by prosperous 
or adverse events, and to bear the ills of life, as incidents 
to its nature, sent to warn but not to subdue us. He was 
faithful to these principles, and as success had never 
disturbed his equanimity, adversity only displayed in 
him the dignity of misfortune. His descent from power 
into poverty attested his purity, and his devotion to the 
public service, which in generous minds naturally inspires 
a disregard of personal interests. He therefore neither 
desponded nor complained, but prepared with a scrupu- 
lous fidelity to surrender his earnings and his patrimony, 
his chosen home, the scene of his attachments and his 
enjoyments, and then to retreat to some possession which 
would still survive the claims of justice, and furnish a 
last refuge and a grave. The knowledge of it aroused 
his countrymen to efforts which but for his death might 
have relieved him. But it is not less worthy of his 
country to consider whether this inadequate provision 
for public services should continue, in hostility to all the 
principles of our institutions, by proscribing from the 
service of the state men of humble fortunes, and render- 
ing the life of a statesman a perpetual struggle between 
his domestic duties and the impulses of a generous am- 
bition. We may hereafter outgrow this weakness of our 
youth, but it is a subject of melancholy instruction that 
the last days of Jefferson were clouded by anxieties 



41 

which the country for its own glory should have averted 
or relieved. 

The time however had arrived when his cares and his 
existence were to end. His health had been through life 
singularly robust, as the vigorous frame which nature 
had bestowed on him was preserved by habits of great 
regularity and temperance. But for some months pre- 
vious to his death he was obviously declining, and at 
length the combination of disease and decay terminated 
his life on the 4th day of July 1826 in the 84th year of 
his age. He died with the firmness and self possession 
native to his character, and the last hours of his exis- 
tence were cheered and consecrated by the return of 
that day when of all others it was most fit that he should 
die — the birth day of his country. He felt that this 
was his appropriate resting place, and he gave up to 
God his enfeebled frame and his exhausted spirit on the 
anniversary almost of that hour which half a century 
before had seen him devoting the mature energies of his 
mind and the concentered affections of his heart to the 
freedom of his country. 

So lived and died Thomas Jefferson, a name illustrious 
in our day and destined to an enduring fame hereafter. 
The attempt to analyse his genius and to estimate his 
services will aptly follow this recital of his personal 
history. 

The peculiar character of the mind of Jefferson was 
its entire originality. There was nothing feeble nor 
ordinary in the structure of that intellect which, reject- 
ing the common-places which pass, only because they go 
unchallenged, through the world and seeking for truth 
rather in nature than in received opinions, examined for 
itself, thought for itself, and yielded its convictions 
only to reason. This temper was nourished by the 



A 



42 

severe studies which disciplined his youth, and confirm- 
ed by the indulgence in retirement of those deep and 
lonely moods of thought by which the noblest powers 
of the mind are nursed. In any country and at any 
time these powers would have rendered him distin- 
guished ; but while their direction was yet undetermined, 
the great conflict, which has occupied the last half cen- 
tury, between institutions and men, between the human 
race for freedom on one side and a few individuals for 
privileges on the other, found him on the verge of man- 
hood, and awakened that impassioned devotion to free- 
dom which shed its hues over all the studies and actions 
of his life. Among his contemporaries no one was more 
early or more deeply imbued with the spirit of his age, 
and few have contributed more to its diffusion. The 
youngest among the leaders of the revolution and at 
last almost the only survivor of them, he stood between 
two generations, and his free opinions which had startled 
the first race as hazardous innovations became during 
his life established truths among their posterity. This 
combination of an original mind impelled equally by 
the love of science and the love of freedom best reveals 
the true character of Jefferson and will best explain his 
whole history. 

It is the first glory of his life, to have been one of the 
founders of a great and free empire, undoubtedly among 
the most distinguished events in the history of mankind. 
It was not, like the beginning of the Roman dominion, a 
fellowship of outlaws, commenced in pillage and cement- 
ed by fraticide — nor yet the establishment of the obscure 
dynasties and the village empires of most of the ancient 
legislators; but it was the deliberate achievement of the 
proudest spirits of their age, who, in the eye of the world 
and at their own imminent hazard, built up the loftiest 



43 

temple of free government ever reared among men. On 
its fairest column, among the companions of him who 
had no equal, is inscribed the name of Jefterson. From 
out that temple, this country, the young mother of na- 
tions, has poured forth her children, her language, 
and her institutions, to cultivate and to bless the new 
world. The unnumbered people, the thronged em- 
pires which will hereafter fill these happy regions, will 
in the fulness of their prosperity turn with filial reve- 
rence to those ancestors who laid the deep foundations 
of their freedom, and eminently to him who drew its 
great charter. The fame of that instrument may yet 
survive the freedom it proclaimed. But even in the decay 
and overthrow of this country the pilgrim strangers 
from the remotest lands of this many-nationed continent, 
who may trace back to its source in these desolate places 
the stream of their own greatness, shall still find in the 
eternal freshness of the fountains of freedom the me- 
mory of Jetierson. 

It is scarcely less glorious that even among his own 
great associates he was distinguished by being at once 
a scholar and a statesman. If, as is unquestionable, 
among all the intellectual pursuits, the master science 
is that of government, in the hierarchy of human nature 
the first place must be conceded to those gifted spirits 
who after devoting their youth to liberal studies are 
attracted to the public service and attain its highest 
honours, shedding over their course the light of that 
pure moral and intellectual cultivation which at once 
illustrates them and adorns their country. It is thus 
that philosophy best fulfils her destiny, when coming 
from her seclusion into the arena of life she shares 
and leads in defending the cause of truth and freedom. 
This is not easy : for many JKho were conspicuous in 



ly jKhc 

4. 



44 

retirement have failed in action, over burtiiened by 
their preparation, as men sink under the weight of 
their own armour. But to succeed — to combine the 
knowledge of the schools and of the world — to be learn- 
ed in books and things and yet able to govern men, 
to deserve that most illustrious of all names — a phi- 
losophical statesman : this is at once the highest bene- 
jfit which study can bestow on the world and the no- 
blest reward which the world can confer on learning. 
This was the singular merit of Jefferson. "The whole 
"of my life," said he to a friend, "has been at war with 
"my natural tastes, feelings, and wishes. Domestic life 
"and literary pursuits were my first and latest desire. 
"Circumstances have led me along the path I have trod- 
"den, and like a bow long bent I resume with delight 
"the character and pursuits for which nature designed 
"me." Yet the influence of these tastes over his whole 
career was equally obvious and beneficial. It is this 
exhaustless love of study which enables the finer intel- 
lects to sustain the burthen of public duties, to resist 
the encroachments of that selfishness, and to overcome 
that disgust, which intense devotion to the business of 
the world is too prone to inspire. From that outer scene 
of contention with the passions and interests of others 
their retreat is to the fountain within, calming by its re- 
pose and freshening with its coolness the overstrained 
energy of the mind. Such was the attachment of Jef- 
ferson to these pursuits, that in the course of his long 
and active life there were few departments of learning 
which his inquisitive mind had not explored. Of law, 
not merely its technical forms, but the spirit of jurispru- 
dence, the author of the revised code of Virginia proved 
himself a master; and of his intimacy with that circle of 
knowledge which ministers to legislation and to inter- 



45 

national law, his successful execution of all the duties of 
a member of many legislative bodies, a minister, and a 
secretary of state, is the best testimony. The ample 
volume of ancient history and ancient languages, — of 
modern history and modern languages, was equally 
familiar to him. Mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, 
natural history, and natural philosophy, as well as the 
mechanic arts, were favourite pursuits, gracefully relieved 
by the studies of architecture and music : and all were 
connected and embellished by a wide range of miscel- 
laneous literature. A greater mass of knowledge has 
often been accumulated by solitary students, and deeper 
researches have been doubtless made in ail these sciences 
than consisted with the labours of an active statesman. 
But their prevailing charm lay in their perfect harmony 
with his social duties. They never obtruded, never out- 
grew their subordination to his pubHc character, to which 
they imparted at once the strength of knowledge and 
the lustre of reputation. In a mind so vigorous they 
produced their natural fruits — perfect independence and 
simplicity. It is a truth of universal application, that 
they who are proud of their places confess their in- 
feriority to them, and that the only true independence 
is the personal pride which is conscious that no po- 
sition can exalt or humiliate it, and that in all times 
and under all circumstances the man predominates 
over the station. Jefferson accordingly felt that there 
are in the world much higher elevations than offices and 
far more alluring occupations than the struggles of po- 
litical parties. He therefore neither sought nor shunned 
official stations, occupying them when they were volun- 
tarily tendered but leaving them as willingly, and always 
communicating more distinction than he derived from 
them. But having assumed, he filled them, perfectly and 
7 



ijmj^ 



46 

devotedly. Such indeed was the disciplined industry of 
iiis versatile mind, that after discharging all the duties 
of his station with a precision which the most laborious 
dulness might envy, his elastic spirit resumed his studies 
with fresh ardour or escaped to the charms of that so- 
cial intercourse which he knew so well how to enjoy and 
adorn. He enjoyed and adorned it the more, because 
he carried into it that which in men, as in things, marks 
the last stage of refinement — entire simplicity. Too 
strong to need concealment — and too proud to descend 
to those artifices of dignity by which little minds dex- 
terously veil their weakness, he was distinguished by the 
frankness and boldness with which all his thoughts were 
breathed to those around him — and for the unaffected 
simplicity of his manners. Even on that bleak eminence 
the presidency of his country, he was still only its first 
citizen, blending with admirable grace the simple dig- 
nity of a grave ruler with the varied acquirements of 
philosophy and the frank and cordial aflability of a gen- 
tleman. 

His writings are all imbued by the same spirit. The 
declaration of independence, the revised code, the Notes 
on Virginia, like the various reforms which he exe- 
cuted or meditated, are the joint efforts of that originality 
which led the way in every advance towards improve- 
ment, of the learning by which they were defended, and 
of the honest enthusiasm for freedom which nothing could 
dispirit nor subdue. 

His very style partook of that character. Its felicity 
consisted in the freshness and originality of its expression 
and the terse form into which his strength of thought was 
compressed. There might be discovered, by a critical 
eye, some tendency towards new shades of expression as 
well as of thought, and something too of that tinge of 



M 



gallicism imputed to Hume and Gibbon as the result of 
their residence abroad. But the general mould of his 
style was formed at an early age before he left America, 
and preserved its peculiarity through life. His corre- 
spondence was particularly attractive, combining the na- 
tural graces of manner with the rich materials of thought 
and presenting in an endless variety the vivacity and the 
captivating unreserve which form the charm of epistolary 
writing. That however which we may most usefully 
imitate is its conciseness. It would be a signal addition 
even to his services, if his example could wean us from 
that fatal love of words, that declamatory profusion, by 
which all the real business of life is oppressed and which 
threaten to confine the knowledge of our public aftairs 
to those only who possess diligent leisure. 

The same temper accompanied him to his highest 
station, and rendered him a bold and fearless chief ma- 
gistrate, — qualities singularly valuable in this country. 
The tendency and the danger of other governments 
is subserviency to courts, that of ours is submission to po- 
pular excitement, which statesmen should often rather 
repress than obey. Undoubtedly the public councds 
should reflect the public sentiment; but that mirror may 
be dimmed by being too closely breathed on, nor can 
all the other qualities of a public man ever supply the 
want of personal independence. It is that fatal want 
which renders so many ostensible leaders in fact only 
followers, which makes so many who might have been 
statesmen degenerate into politicians, and tends to peo- 
ple the country with the slaves and the victims of 
that mysterious fascination, the love of popularity. Jef- 
ferson felt himself strong in his own originality. His 
administration was a conflici between those who had 
gained the power from which they had deemed them- 



48 

selves proscribed — and those who, outnumbered yet not 
vanquished, yielded with a stubborn resistance the 
heights from which they were descending. But the self 
possessed and balanced mind of the leader bore him 
proudly through the struggle. His- commanding spirit 
restrained the ardour of his followers, and even in the 
flush of victory his triumph was stained by no excesses. 
But the mildest use of authority is obnoxious to re- 
proach, and — as the want of power to persecute each 
other for religion has driven all our fanaticism into poli- 
tics — the enmities against him were so embittered as to 
form almost a reproach on our nature, were it not re- 
deemed by the reflection that he outlived all these 
calumnies till even the most violent of his enemies were 
subdued into admiration of him. It was indeed a rare 
example of magnanimity to see this magistrate, the per- 
petual object of scorn and obloquy, content with the 
consciousness of its injustice, and never teinpted to em- 
ploy his influence or the power of the law to suppress 
it, satisfied, to use his own happy expression, that " er- 
" ror of opinion may be safely tolerated where reason is 
" left free to combat it." He did wisely in this. The 
press in our country, like the monitor in the Roman 
triumph who stood beside the victor to guard him against 
the illusions of prosperity, is privileged to pour its warn- 
ings into the ear of successful ambition ; and its rough 
licence may well be borne as the price of freedom, and 
the tax on distinction. 

But, whatever might be deemed of the measures of 
his administration, the accomplishments requisite for his 
station could not be denied to him. The chief magistracy 
of this country, — the highest political elevation to which 
any private man can now aspire without crime or revolu- 
tion — that reward of ambition whose temptations allure 



49 

so many and should make us forgive so much, — may be 
not ingloriously administered by fortunate mediocrity, if 
it be content meekly to inscribe its name on our political 
olympiads. But when the man adorns the station — 
when its powers are nobly exercised and its honours 
gracefully worn, he may not yield in dignity of place 
to any whom the accidents of birth or fortune have raised 
to supreme authority. In the bearings of his personal 
character, Jefferson can be safely compared with the 
contemporary rulers of nations, not excepting him — the 
greatest of them all ; nor need our patriotism shrink from 
the singular contrast between two men, chiefs for nearly 
an equal period of their respective countries, and models 
of their different species, — Napoleon, the emperor of a 
great nation — and Jefferson, the chief magistrate of a 
free people. 

Of that extraordinary being it is fit to speak with the 
gentleness due to misfortune. Two centuries have 
scarce sufficed to retrieve the fame of Cromwell from that 
least expiable of crimes — his success over a feeble and 
profligate race, more fortunate in their historian than 
their history : and the memory of Napoleon must long 
atone equally for his elevation and his reverses. There 
are already those who disparage his genius, as if this 
were not to humble the nations who stood dismayed be- 
fore it. Great talents, varied acquirements, many high 
qualities, enlightened views of legislation and domestic 
policy, it were bigotry to deny to Napoleon. The very 
tide of his conquests over less civilized nations, depo- 
sited in receding some benefits even to the vanquished 
— and all that glory can contribute to public happiness, 
was profusely lavished on his country. But in the midst 
of this gaudy infatuation there was that which disen- 



50 

chanted the spell — that which struck its damp chill into 
the heart of any man who, undazzled by the vulgar de- 
corations of power, looked only at the blessings it might 
confer, and who weighed, instead of counting, these vic- 
tories. Such are the delusions which military ambition 
sheds in turn on its possessor and on the world, that its 
triumphs begin with the thoughtless applause of its 
future victims, and end in the maddening intoxication 
of its own prosperity. We may not wonder then if, 
when those who should have first resisted his power 
were foremost in admiration and servility — when the 
whole continent of Europe was one submissive depend- 
ence on his will — when among the crowd of native 
and stranger suppliants who worshipped before this idol 
there was only one manly and independent voice to re- 
buke his excesses in a tone worthy of a free people — that 
of the representative of Jefferson, we may not wonder if 
all the brilliant qualities which distinguished the youth 
of Napoleon were at last concentered into a spirit of 
intense selfishness, and that the whole purpose to which 
his splendid genius was perverted was the poor love of 
swaying the destinies of other men — not to benefit, not 
to bless — but simply to command them, to engross 
every thing, and to be every thing. It was for this that 
he disturbed the earth with his insane conquests, — for 
this that the whole freedom of the human mind — the 
elastic vigour of the intellect — all the natural play of 
the human feelings — all free agency, were crushed be- 
neath this fierce and immitigable dominion, which, 
degrading the human race into the mere objects and 
instruments of slaughter, would soon have left nothing 
to science but to contrive the means of mutual de- 
struction, and nothing to letters except to flatter the 
common destroyer. Contrast this feverish restlessness 



51 

which is called ambition — this expanded love of vio- 
lence which makes heroes — contrast these, as they shone 
in the turbulent existence of Napoleon, with the peace- 
ful disinterested career of Jefferson: and in all the rela- 
tions of their power — its nature, its employment, and its 
result — we may assign the superiority to the civil magis- 
trate. 

Napoleon owed his elevation to military violence — 
Jefferson to the voluntary suffrage of his country. The 
one ruled sternly over reluctant subjects — the other was 
but the foremost among his equals who respected in his 
person the image of their own authority. Napoleon 
sought to enlarge his influence at home by enfeebling 
all the civil institutions, and abroad by invading the 
possessions of his neighbours — Jefi'erson preferred to 
abridge his power by strict constructions, and his coun- 
sels were uniformly dissuasive against foreign wars. Yet 
the personal influence of Jefferson was far more enviable, 
for he enjoyed the unlimited confidence of his country — 
while Napoleon had no authority not conceded by fear; 
and the extortions of force are evil substitutes for that 
most fascinating of all sway — the ascendancy over 
equals. During the undisputed possession of that power, 
Napoleon seemed unconscious of its noblest attribute, 
the capacity to make man freer or happier ; and no 
one great or lofty purpose of benefiting mankind, no 
generous sympathy for his race, ever disturbed that se- 
pulchral selfishness, or appeased that scorn of humanity, 
which his successes almost justified — But the life of Jef- 
ferson was a perpetual devotion, not to his own purposes, 
but to the pure and noble cause of public freedom. 
From the first dawning of his youth his undivided heart 
was given to the establishment of free principles — free 
institutions—freedom in all its varieties of untrammelled 



52 

thought and independent action. His whole life was 
consecrated to the improvement and happiness of his 
fellow men ; and his intense enthusiasm for knowledge 
and freedom was sustained to his dying hour. Their 
career was as strangely different in its close as in its 
character. The power of Napoleon was won by the 
sword — maintained by the sword — lost by the sword. 
That colossal empire which he had exhausted fortune in 
rearing broke before the first shock of adversity. The 
most magnificently gorgeous of all the pageants of our 
times — when the august ceremonies of religion blessed 
and crowned that soldier-emperor, when the allegiance of 
the great captains who stood by his side, the applauses of 
assembled France in the presence of assenting Europe, the 
splendid pomp of war softened by the smiles of beauty, 
and all the decorations of all the arts, blended their en- 
chantments as that imperial train swept up the aisles of 
Notre Dame — faded into the silent cabin of that lone 
island in a distant sea. The hundred thousands of sol- 
diers who obeyed his voice — the vv'ill which made the 
destiny of men — the name whose humblest possessor 
might be a king — all shrunk into the feeble band who 
followed the captivity of their master. Of all his foreign 
triumphs not one remained, and in his first military con- 
quest — his own country, which he had adorned with the 
monuments of his fame, there is now no place even for 
the tomb of this desolate exile. — But the glory of Jef- 
ferson became even purer as the progress of years mel- 
lowed into veneration the love of his countrymen. He 
died in the midst of the free people whom he had lived 
to serve ; and his only ceremonial, worthy equally of him 
and of them, was the simple sublimity of his funeral tri- 
umph. His power he reffflWWfr-as long as he desired it, 
and then voluntarily restored the trust, with a permanent 



addition — derived from Napoleon himself — far exceed- 
ing the widest limits of the French empire — that victory 
of peace which outweighs all the conquests of Napoleon, 
as one line of the declaration of independence is worth 
all his glory. 

But he also is now gone. The genius, the various 
learning, the private virtues, the public honours, which 
illustrated and endeared his name, are gathered into the 
tomb, leaving to him only the fame, and to us only the 
remembrance, of them. Be that memory cherished with- 
out regret or sorrow. Our affection could hope nothing 
better for him than this long career of glorious and 
happy usefulness, closed before the infirmities of age had 
impaired its lustre ; and the grief that such a man is 
dead, may be well assuaged by the proud consolation 
that such a man has lived. 




54 



NOTE. 



1 AM indebted to the kindness of Dr Mease for per- 
mission to transcribe the following letters on the subject 
of the house in which the declaration of independence 
was written. 

Monticello, Sep. 16, 1825. 
Dear Sir, 

It is not for me to estimate the importance 
of the circumstances concerning which your letter of the 8th makes in- 
quiry. They prove, even in their minuteness, the sacred attachments of our 
fellow citizens to the event of which the paper of July 4, 1776 was but the 
declaration, the genuine effusion of the soul of our country at that time. 
Small things may perhaps, like the relics of saints, help to nourish our de- 
votion to this holy bond of our union, and keep it longer alive and warm in 
our affections. This effect may give importance to circumstances however 
small. — At the time of writing that instrument I lodged in the house of a 
Mr Graaf, a new brick house three stories high, of which I rented the se- 
cond floor, consisting of a parlour and bed room ready furnished. In that 
parlour 1 wrote habitually, and in it wrote this paper particularly. So far I 
state from written proofs in my possession. The proprietor Graaf was a 
young man, son of a German, and then newly married. I think he was a 
bricklayer, and that his house was on the south side of Market street, pro- 
bably betw- en 7th and Sth streets, and if not the only house on that part 
of the street, I am sure there were few others near it. I have some idea 



55 

that it was a coiner house, but no other recollections throwing any light 
on the question or worth coiiiniunieation. I am ill, therefore only add as- 
surance of my great respect and esteem. 



TH. JEFFERSON. 



Dr James Mease, 

Philadelphia. 



Monticello, Oct. 30, 1825. 

Dear Sir, 

Your letter of Sept. 8, inquiring after 
the house in which the declaration of independence was written, has ex- 
cited my curiosity to know whether my recollections were such as to enable 
you to find out the house. — A line on the subject would oblige, 

Dear Sir, Yours, 

TH. JEFFERSON. 

Dr Mease. 

Mr Jefferson was correct in his recollections, and the 
house is known to be that mentioned in the text. 



.TAMES KAY, JUN. PRINTER. 





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